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White House Killed Deal For Mental Health Care For Families Separated At Border
Cruelty: The constant, devastating feature of the Trump administration.
The Trump White House blocked the Justice Department from making a deal in October 2019 to pay for mental health services for migrant families who had been separated by the Trump administration.... reject the settlement of a federal lawsuit after consultation with senior adviser Stephen Miller, the driving force behind many of Trump's immigration policies, including family separations.
"DOJ strongly, and unanimously, supported the settlement, but not all agencies involved were on the same page," an administration official said. "Ultimately, the settlement was declined at the direction of the White House counsel's office."
The pain this administration has inflicted on so many children and their families is infuriating beyond comprehension.
After nine months of negotiations, primarily in Los Angeles, an $8 million settlement for screening and counseling thousands of migrants had been "agreed to in principle" by both lawyers for the Justice Department and lawyers representing the migrant families, said Mark Rosenbaum, a lawyer with the pro bono public interest law firm Public Counsel representing the families.
"Many of these children thought their parents had deliberately abandoned them. The longer that trauma goes unredressed, the more severe the consequences," Rosenbaum said. "We had a deal, a good deal. Everybody was feeling good about where we were. Then they came back and said no."
Unimaginable cruelty, and cynicism. Looking ahead, we have a moral obligation to try to make this right as best we can.
The lawyers representing the government recommended approval to their superiors in Washington. At the Justice Department, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Claire Murray took the figure to the Office of White House Counsel. It was there that the settlement was rejected, according to the two current and two former administration officials.
The White House's refusal to accept the deal ended up costing taxpayers $6 million.